


The man who ate Manhattan

by sloganeer



Category: Kitchen Confidential
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2005-12-15
Updated: 2005-12-15
Packaged: 2017-10-03 00:35:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,525
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12264
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sloganeer/pseuds/sloganeer
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Escoffier was a pimp.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The man who ate Manhattan

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks ljuser=barely_bean for the beta and the encouraging words. Tony Bourdain for everything that's good in this story.

Jack wakes with the sun. It's something that has come with sobriety, and another thing he's not yet used to. Steven's asleep above the covers next to him. There's a crust of drool at the corner of his mouth, which is good because sometimes Jack needs an excuse to push him away. Steven showed up last night, mostly drunk, only an hour after they said goodbye at Nolita. He doesn't make a noise when Jack rolls out of bed, and maybe he's not even breathing, but Jack needs his morning cigarette, and doesn't bother to check.

He smokes in the elevator on the way down, and grabs coffee at the Korean across the street. It's brewed in an ancient machine, and the handle's always greasy, but it's better even than the French roast shit they serve at the restaurant. Grabbing the New York Times and paying for them both with money he finds in yesterday's jeans, Jack cabs it over to Barney Greengrass for breakfast.

"You went to see the Sturgeon King?" Steven looks offended, at the notion or the hour, when Jack makes it back to his apartment. "That's the kind of thing you wake a man up for, no matter how many Guinness he's had the night before."

Jack shakes his head because Steven is a small, stupid man. He holds up the paper bag, teasing, and watches Steven's eyes follow it back and forth.

"What am I?" he says. "Chopped liver?"

"Oh, don't do the joke, mate." Steven lunges. "Just gimme the stuff."

Jack tosses the bag, and Steven has to catch it behind his head. He makes a space on the coffee table with one, long sweep of his arm, and sets out the two half-pound tubs of the best chopped liver in the world.

"I got the crackers," Jack says, but nobody's listening. When he comes out of the kitchen, arms loaded down with cheap saltines and stale melba toast, Steven's already, with his fingers, into the first of the tubs.

"Would you please? I actually know where those fingers have been."

After the chopped liver, and what it leads to on the couch, Jack needs another shower. In his bedroom, he finds Steven in his closet and in his clothes. Whenever he gets the chance, Steven pilfers his Ramones shirt. It's an original, and stretched all to hell by Steven's broad shoulders. There's not much left of the lettering, flaked off by too many trips through the washing machine. Steven turns around, puffed-up chest, and looking for approval.

"I've come twice this morning; I'm not in the mood to argue." Jack pulls off his towel. He scrubs his hair, his face, then throws the towel at Steven. "You leave anything clean for me?"

Back into yesterday's jeans, they share a cigarette on the sidewalk while they wait for a cab. Steven only smokes cigarettes with Jack, and when he holds it out, it's between his thumb and forefinger. Jack's distracted, and Steven notices.

"You're thinking about today's specials," he accuses. Steven doesn't approve of an honest day's work. Steven likes a little trouble with his breakfast, and Jack doesn't have to wait long.

When a yellow cab stops, and shuts off its light, Jack gets in the back, but Steven takes the front.

"28th and Park," Jack offers, then Steven holds up his hand.

"No, we're going to the upper east side," and the cabbie punches his clock.

"What are you up to, Daedalus?"

Steven turns around in his seat and talks to Jack with a finger in his face. "You got to see the Sturgeon King; I wanna see the Papaya King."

It's something of a pilgrimage. and not as fun as Mecca. But the hot dogs are worth it. Tastier than filet mignon, the sign says, and, in New York, neon doesn't lie.

Jack is a traditionalist when it comes to his dogs. Wiener and bun need nothing more than a liberal squirt of mustard. He gets one with sauerkraut, too, because it's an occasion.

Steven is a glutton in food and all things. He orders three hot dogs, just to accommodate all his toppings. They eat on the sidewalk, and the sounds of Steven inhaling his food drown out the city. The moment is cut short, though, when he reaches for the last of Jack's papaya juice.

"I don't think so."

"Gotta wash down the bun," he says through his doughy mouthful. There's a single cube of relish stuck to Steven's chin. Jack doesn't say anything, and finishes his juice with an emphatic slurp. Steven pouts, and they hail a cab back to civilization. Steven wants to make out in the back seat, but Jack can't stop staring at his chin.

Seth ruins the joke when he says, "What's that on your face?" They're barely inside the doors at Nolita. Steven glares back at Jack, then Seth is laughing, and then Steven is chasing Seth with the whipped cream.

Jack makes stops at the fry, grill, and prep stations on the way to his office. He slaps a hand on the shoulder of his dishwasher before he realises that it isn't Ramon. He backs away slowly, and gets away to check deliveries.

Mimi's at the office door after Jack's seventh cigarette of the day. "Pino's sending you wild boar. We had dinner at the Supper Club, and now he wants it on the menu." She's smiling because she thinks she's won.

Before rehab, but after he lost his last kitchen, Steven would pick him up in a Camaro, an Olds, a truck -- whatever was left running outside his building that night. They fight about what to do, where to go, what to drink. But they never fight about where to eat, and, on the best nights, they'd end up at Veritas for the dinner rush.

They would order off the menu, anything to stump Scott and his sommelier at five to closing. Steven asked for sauce on the side, and Jack sent everything back for refire. But Scott's a pro, and he's from Boston, and he's known Jack too long to take his shit.

It's a memory blurred by vodka, but Jack thinks he remembers something about boar.

"Steven," Jack calls, and he's right there, knife in hand. "Wild boar at Veritas. Get the recipe.

Jack's on the Robot-Coupe when Steven gets back. He palms his hand with a well-trained move, and leaves Jack with a dry-cleaning ticket and a list of ingredients on the back. This is good. Switch out the olive oil for Normandy butter, jack up the price, and he gets it to Mimi before the wait staff can collect bets on the night.

Jack gives his compliments to the chef when Scott shows up in the Bellevue Bar backroom with a couple hundred dollars of foie gras in a Veritas paper bag.

"Wild boar at Nolita?" There's just a hint of war in his words. "Stepping up to the big boy table, Bourdain?"

Jack drops an arm around Scott's shoulders. "Hey," he asks the crowd of cooks. "Who invited the cool kid?"

That gets him a cuff upside the head, and then they do a shot. Scott takes the tequila; Jack, the lime.

It's a good crowd tonight. Philippe's already drunk because Park Bistro closes at eleven. Eric came down off Le Bernardin's four stars to join them, and share a drink with the cooks. Jack tells a story about fry-o-later grease and seven hundred dollars someone still owes the EPA. Steven says he can top that, and gets up on the bar to prove it.

There are times when Jack wonders how Steven would tell the story of the two of them. Jack thinks about showing up at midnight for the wild boar at Veritas, then telling Scott over espresso, "I'm sleeping with my sous-chef."

"You're not the first," Scott would say. "Escoffier was a pimp."

Steven's all the way drunk now, and when they walk across the street to catch a cab, he does a manic dance to stay warm. It's not cold, and it's not that long a wait. Jack reaches the door first. Steven gets in the front. It's two o'clock in the morning, and this can only end badly.

"Where you from, mate?" Steven asks the dark-skinned cabbie.

"Brooklyn," he says, and they pull away from the curb.

"All right, yeah, but what about before that?" Steven does this sober, but tonight, the tequila's a good excuse. Jack doesn't have that excuse; he has a one year chip.

The driver turns another corner, then says, "My father came from Iran."

Steven turns around in his seat to slaps Jack's shoulder, bringing him back to the task at hand.

"So you must know where to get the best schawarma in the city, then."

In the rearview mirror, Jack can see the cab driver's eyes light up. Steven matches his grin, and the cabbie takes it as permission to lead on. The two of them, they light up, and Jack offers a tired smile to his dining companion and their guide.

"Yeah," the cabbie says. "I know a place."


End file.
